The present invention relates to a bar feeding system for automatic feeding and cutting of reinforcing bars and the like wherein long lengths of the bars are fed several at a time from an inclined storage ramp to a conveyor and are spaced apart and fed through a cut-off machine or press by magnetic means including magnetic V-grooved drive rolls.
Heretofore, it has been difficult to handle conventional concrete reinforcing bars, known as "rebars", because of the irregular deformed non-cylindrical outer surface which interferes with rolling of such bars. It has been the practice to cut long lengths of such "rebars" by loading the bars manually onto a conveyor and guiding them to a press or cut-off machine by means of V-grooved rolls. For example, rebars with long lengths, such as 50 feet or more, have been loaded manually and fed several at a time to a shear or cut-off machine where they are cut to shorter lengths.
Various types of bar feeders have heretofore been provided for handling long bars of relatively small diameter and for transferring such bars from a storage ramp to a conveyor, but these were not suitable for handling "rebars" and could not provide automatic feeding of such "rebars" several at a time to the conveyor. Instead it has been the practice to load the V-grooved rolls of the conveyor manually when feeding rebars to a cut-off machine.